Tuesday, October 28, 2014

North Norfolk

Back again. This time with The Prof and when I go birding with The Prof, I see things. And this time I saw a new bird. It was the SURF SCOTER that had been loitering off Holkham Gap for a couple of days. Despite the strengthening wind, the light was great and there were Scoters to be seen on the sea. The bird was associating with three Velvet Scoter, with a few Common Scoter in the vicinity. Seven Sanderling skipped along the foreshore.

Now the day actually started off at Salthouse where the Grey Phalarope was seen without too much fuss and bother, just a beaut of a bird looking skitty as they always do with those punctuated movements perversely bearing resemblance to a fully wound-up toy on full power. Diminutive in size, these birds are tough, enduring hard winters out in the ocean in areas that even the shipping forecast doesn't reach. Seeing it being mobbed by a Jackdaw was a little harsh.

Heading over to Lady Anne's Drive, a large group of birders were assembled looking at a Great White Egretthat we later observed from a pull-in along the A149. In the same area was a very pale Buzzard. With the presence of a Rough-Leg around Holkham, there were murmurings that this was their bird.

However, a later search for the RLB produced five Common Buzzard, two of which were conspicuously pale and worryingly deceptive to the assembled folk that were leaving convinced they had seen it.

The Prof was also up to his tricks, white flags appeared to be an identification challenge, some were Egrets, some were not. Then there were Kestrels and Eleanora's Falcons, and we were agast at the whimsy we were creating, conjuring up fictictious birds and nailing them to our mental notebooks.

Norfolk makes you heady. The sea air is dripping with hallucinogens that make the sane fanciful. I'm roaring out for Norfolk at the moment. I've not visited this area as much as I have done this year.

It really has gone to my head and I'm acting like a proper birder.

The video really isn't great so I will call it 'record footage' of the Scoter, Phal, and Egret.